Paracetamol tastes like gin vomit.

All i've eaten today is fruit, because sandwiches went down so badly (literally) yesterday. Oh, and i had a soy yogurt at lunchtime. I couldn't be a fruitarian full time, especially in winter, but it seems to be helping me today. (do soy beans count as fruit? are processed ones any different?)

Inflicted two revision seminars on my amazingly willing students today. Half the essays have now been handed back to their authors, none of whom seemed too distressed about their grades. (which is just as well, because nobody got a really abysmal mark anyway.)

Pervert's Guide to Cinema later.

This week, for anyone able to be blissfully unaware, has been anti-bullying week. I don't know why anyone would want such a thing. Being bullied is the best way for a fat, ugly, stupid kid to learn what lies in store for an adult with similar qualities. Thanks to the nice normal people who highlighted and made me pay for my faults all the way through childhood, i am now perfectly prepared for an adult life where people either dislike and avoid me or believe they are doing me a favour by speaking to me. I have a finely-honed attitude of not giving two shits whether people like me or not, and if it slips then it rarely does so in public. I'm very good at apologising for everything i will inevitably do wrong, up to and including my very existence. It also makes me appreciate the exceptions a lot more. Who could want more?
On the other hand, it would be nice if future generations didn't have to adopt this attitude.

Seriously. I'm having a good day, in objective terms. A promising reply to my flatmate wanted ads around campus, and an interesting teaching course this morning. The realisation that my skintness isn't that terrible, since a) i don't have time to run up expenses, b)i can teach in the department next year and c)i can keep my head above water if i apply just for odd job type things. (invigilating and so on) The book sale in the Atrium today at which i picked up a brace of crime novels for a pound each. The fact that my fake fur is getting an airing for the first time since March. Yesterday's hennaing adventure. You get the idea. Yet an hour or so ago i nearly burst into tears over something so stupid i don't even want to get into it here. Believe me, if that situation didn't exist, i would vote against inventing it. (or use either the block or stand-aside if the decision was being made by consensus - babe, if you want it, you can have it. Being all nice and anti-sexist, i think men should be able to have it too.)

I really want to get my survey going, but i'm all scared that people will be angry at me offering to waste their time. REAL activists do stuff, rather than researching it, is an attitude i've seen a lot - anyone asking questions is suspicious. I need to get over that if i am in fact going to do research into the theory of protest (and i think i am a real activist, in fact) and one small survey where i'm only allowed 10 questions and 100 responses is a pretty good, innocent place to start. Someone tell me i'm not completely doomed on this front.

I have PMS and writer's block and stress-related snack cravings. I'm trying not to panic. I will be healthier and get less shit if i keep off the random food. Work-wise, i've done way more dissertation than most people, so i don't know why i'm worrying about that. This time last year i had hardly any typed goodness, this year i've got three out of four chapters typed up, two of those could be handed in as they are if strictly necessary, and i have another two and a half months to finish it in. I guess i'm always going to worry.

I feel a bit better, having just finished a dissertation chapter - prospect of having the whole thing typed up soon, in draft form anyway, is a good one - and am on the way to sorting out transport for Scotland. Otoh, i'm still kind of nervous about my first big global protest for five years and my first experience in a convergence space, and i also have conflicted feelings about something else unrelated to that. Which i will write about. But for now there is like one person on my f'list who i'd really want to discuss it with, and she's got her own shit to deal with on the subject, so i'll leave it for a bit.

PS anyone reading this ever written an ethnography? Weird question, i know, but i'm going to write one about the G8 protests, so any advice would be gratefully received.

PPS yeah, whatever, think what you like, i wouldn't snog Billie unless she quit the Atkins diet. On which we do not get me started.